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Agnosticism: A Rejoinder
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[67] I suppose this is what Dr. Wace is thinking about when he says that I allege that there “is no visible escape” from the supposition of an Ur-Marcus (p. 367). That a “theologian of repute” should confound an indisputable fact with one of the modes of explaining that fact is not so singular as those who are unaccustomed to the ways of theologians might imagine.
[68] Any examiner whose duty it has been to examine into a case of “copying” will be particularly well prepared to appreciate the force of the case stated in that most excellent little book, The Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, by Dr. Abbott and Mr. Rushbrooke (Macmillan, 1884). To those who have not passed through such painful experiences I may recommend the brief discussion of the genuineness of the “Casket Letters” in my friend Mr. Skelton’s interesting book, Maitland of Lethington. The second edition of Holtzmann’s Lehrbuch, published in 1886, gives a remarkably fair and full account of the present results of criticism. At p. 366 he writes that the present burning question is whether the “relatively primitive narrative and the root of the other synoptic texts is contained in Matthew or in Mark. It is only on this point that properly-informed (sachkundige) critics differ,” and he decides in favour of Mark.
[69] Holtzmann (Die synoptischen Evangelien, 1863, p. 75), following Ewald, argues that the “Source A” (= the threefold tradition, more or less) contained something that answered to the “Sermon on the Plain” immediately after the words of our present Mark, “And he cometh into a house” (iii. 19). But what conceivable motive could “Mark” have for omitting it? Holtzmann has no doubt, however, that the “Sermon on the Mount” is a compilation, or, as he calls it in his recently-published Lehrbuch (p. 372), “an artificial mosaic work.”
[70] See Schuerer, Geschichte des juedischen Volkes, Zweiter Thiel, p. 384.
[71] Spacious, because a young man could sit in it “on the right side” (xv. 5), and therefore with plenty of room to spare.
[72] King Herod had not the least difficulty in supposing the resurrection of John the Baptist–“John, whom I beheaded, he is risen” (Mark vi. 16).
[73] I am very sorry for the interpolated “in,” because citation ought to be accurate in small things as in great. But what difference it makes whether one “believes Jesus” or “believes in Jesus” much thought has not enabled me to discover. If you “believe him” you must believe him to be what he professed to be–that is, “believe in him;” and if you “believe in him” you must necessarily “believe him.”
[74] True for Justin: but there is a school of theological critics, who more or less question the historical reality of Paul, and the genuineness of even the four cardinal epistles.
[75] See Dial. cum Tryphone, Sec.47 and Sec.35. It is to be understood that Justin does not arrange these categories in order, as I have done.
[76] I guard myself against being supposed to affirm that even the four cardinal epistles of Paul may not have been seriously tampered with. See note 1, p. 287 above.
[77] Paul, in fact, is required to commit in Jerusalem, an act of the same character as that which he brands as “dissimulation” on the part of Peter in Antioch.
[78] All this was quite clearly pointed out by Ritschl nearly forty years ago. See Die Entstchung der alt-katholischen Kirche (1850), p. 108.
[79] “If every one was baptized as soon as he acknowledged Jesus to be the Messiah, the first Christians can have been aware of no other essential differences from the Jews.”–Zeller, Vortraege (1865), p. 26.
[80] Dr. Harnack, in the lately-published second edition of his Dogmengeschichte, says (p. 39), “Jesus Christ brought forward no new doctrine;” and again (p. 65), “It is not difficult to set against every portion of the utterances of Jesus an observation which deprives him of originality.” See also Zusatz 4, on the same page.